Second Place
by MoriMori
Summary: Yamanaka Ino always lost. And underneath her loud personality, she was dying inside. Ino is tired of second place. NaruIno ::Just read it. You know you want to.:: oneshot, may be expanded.


Yamanaka Ino always lost.

She always lost the guy, lost the battle, and lost respect.

At family gatherings, her relatives always used to rush up to her and tell her how beautiful and talented she was. Nowadays they slid past her without even a glance or a nod. Ino knew that she had let them down; she was fifteen and only a Chuunin. Most Yamanakas were Jounin by that age. And ANBU by the time they were sixteen. Yamanakas were famous for shining as ANBU. But Ino wasn't meeting expectations.

That was the first thing she had lost; respect.

The second thing she has lost was Sasuke.

Ino could clearly remember when she had first set her sights on the Uchiha prodigy.

It was before Sasuke's family had been killed, at a party thrown by the Yamanakas. The Uchihas were known for the occasional arranged marriage, and they had set their sights on Ino as a possible match for Sasuke or Itachi.

Sasuke was charming and handsome. Ino was cute and bright. And she was taken by the young Uchiha.

But it was obviously too good to be true. Sasuke just wasn't the same after Itachi killed their family. And after years and years of trying to get him to notice her, Ino had finally given up. When the Uchiha had left Konoha he had said goodbye to Sakura; not her. That was enough. She had lost. Sakura had won.

But Ino could _not_ remember when she had first set her sights on Shikamaru.

It had come out of nowhere; suddenly there was an odd fluttery feeling in her stomach whenever he smiled at her, or winked at her. Suddenly when she saw him and Temari together a lump formed in her throat and she got the urge to punch the Suna kunoichi in the face.

Ino had lost that battle too though. Only two weeks ago Shikamaru had wandered into the shop and asked for a dozen Delphinium flowers. Ino had found them, cut them, arranged them in a bouquet and had given them to her teammate grudgingly. She knew what Delphinium meant; boldness. And because he was obviously not giving them to her, there was really only one other kunoichi he would give them to. When Ino saw Temari walking to the Hokage's office carrying the flowers and looking rather dazed, there was no doubt.

"It's not like we can't still be friends," Shikamaru had said when Ino drilled him about it, "Just because I have a…_girlfriend_ doesn't mean I can't hang out with you…troublesome…" But Ino knew he was just saying that to appease her. Temari didn't share.

She had lost Shikamaru.

And then there was Asuma.

Of course Ino was upset that Asuma-sensei had died, but she was even more upset that she hadn't been able to save him. _If I had just been stronger as a medic.._. she constantly thought. She knew that it wasn't her fault but there was still a nagging voice at the back her head telling her that she should have been able to save him. But she couldn't.

She had also lost Sakura.

Ino had taken Sakura under her wing, given her advice, and helped her make friends. But then the pink-haired girl had started to think for herself. She started eyeing Sasuke as well. She became beautiful. She became strong. Ino was falling behind her and she couldn't understand how this had happened.

Losing Sasuke, losing Shikamaru, losing Asuma, losing Sakura, not meeting expectations, she held all those losses inside and slowly let them eat away at her. As long as she had someone to talk to or some mindless mission or a shift at the flower shop…she could hold those emotions inside. But when she was alone or when she was training like she was now…

Ino grunted and her fist made contact with the wooden training dummy for the thousandth time that evening. Her knuckles started to bleed and she cursed; she hated having ugly scars on her hands and then there were the God-awful bandages she'd have to wear to cover them up. Sighing, she decided to practice her kicks on the dummy instead. Ino duly noted that she had started crying.

When she was alone…it hurt even more.

Maybe this was the reason Ino always loved to be the center of attention; being fawned over made the pain go away for a moment. But lately there had been barely any reasons for anyone to really pay attention to her or to pay her a compliment.

So now she was alone more often than not. And instead of just letting all her emotions out and having a good cry, the ever stubborn Ino would refuse to let her weakness show. Instead she would get frustrated and let the tiniest amount of tears to flow over the tiniest things; a late delivery of flowers, the appearance of a few split ends, her knuckles bleeding.

Her kicks were hitting the dummy with less and less power; her stamina was running low. A few more tears trickled down her cheeks that were reddened with exhaustion; her lousy endurance, another frustration. She slumped down and lay on her back looking up and the last minutes of the sunset.

She was tired of this; tired of always losing. Ino hated being the runner-up; there was no prize for second place. She cleared her throat.

"I'm beautiful." She said clearly to herself, counting off her positives, "Hell, I'm damn sexy. I'm part of one of the prominent clans of Konoha, and no one can take that away. I'm determined, I'm a hard worker…sometimes…but I don't give up. I'm great at Ikebana and I'm smart and…and…"

"And you're modest." An amused voice said to her, "Don't forget modest."

Ino sat straight up and glared at the blue-eyed blond-haired boy grinning in front of her, "Shut up." She spat, too exhausted to think of a truly venomous thing to say.

"Wow," Naruto said, "you must have been working hard. You're too tired to even insult me properly." Ino supposed that he was trying to sound sarcastic but his tone still came out cheerful as usual.

The blonde girl rolled her eyes as she stood up, "I'm so, _so_ sorry that my insults aren't up to par. Please forgive me."

Naruto patted her on the back, laughing, "Don't worry about it Ino. I like it when you're nice."

For some reason Naruto's statement shocked Ino and left her paralyzed, mouth agape. "When I'm…nice?" she choked out, "You think I'm…nice?" she looked up at the Kyuubi boy as if he was the dumbest person on the planet. No one _ever_ called her nice. Ino was always the bitch, always the bad girl, always the spoiled brat. People didn't root for girls like her. They rooted for independent girls like Sakura and Temari, sweet, shy girls like Hinata, and underdogs like Tenten. But never for shallow and stereotypical girls like Ino.

She looked up to see a pair of confused cerulean eyes peering back at her, "Of course I think you're nice." Naruto said, grinning like the Cheshire Cat, "Well…sometimes you're kind of scary but you never punch me like Sakura-chan…and when you're nice you're really easy to talk to and...yeah." Naruto suddenly looked tired of thinking and instead he smiled sheepishly at Ino, who smiled back.

There was a strange light feeling in the pit of Ino's stomach. And yet she felt ridiculously happy; happier than she had been in a while. This was the first real compliment she'd been paid in so long.

"Naruto," she said abruptly, "do you respect me?"

Before answering, Naruto looked at Ino oddly. _What a weird question…_ he thought. "Will you hurt me if I say no?" he joked. When Ino gave him a look he laughed, "I do Ino, I do. You're cool and you're a good kunoichi." He grinned at her and from the genuine look in his eyes Ino could tell that he really meant what he said.

"Thanks." She said simply. "Now," she started to walk off and glanced back at Naruto, inviting him to follow, "Let's go get some ramen."

Naruto looked dumbstruck, "I thought you hated Ramen. I mean, you're always saying that you're on a diet or something…"

Ino glared at him, "Well do _you_ think I need to be on a diet?!" she challenged.

Putting his hands in front of his chest and shaking his head fervently, Naruto tried to operate under the glare of Ino, "No, _no!!_ Of course you don't need to be on a diet!! I just thought…"

"Well don't." Ino said, "You're much cuter when you don't think." She stated matter-of-factly, nearly knocking the whiskered boy out with her bluntness, "Now I _might_ like ramen if _someone_ would buy it for me…" she looked back at him cutely.

Blushing and laughing Naruto walked towards her, searching his pockets for money, "Well I _might_ be able to treat you to a bowl." He said as they walked towards Ichiraku Ramen.

Ino absolutely _hated_ ramen, but she smiled anyway and looped her arm through Naruto's. To her satisfaction, his face went beet red again.

Maybe she didn't _always_ lose.

* * *

AAAAAANNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGSSSSSSSSTTTTTTTTT 

I'm so not an angst-writing person. I like lighthearted fics. But for some reason I've been kind of bothered with people always writing Ino as this bubbly bitchy blonde chick (haha, I'm guilty of that too), so I decided to write a oneshot where Ino was more serious-ish. But I did have to add a bit of lightheartedness in the end. And really, this fic wasn't totally angsty. It just kind of seemed like that to me, lol.

This didn't really take me long to write at all. And it's kind of short. I really should be writing in "Miss Independent". xP

Review because you know you love NaruIno. –smiles cutely—

--Mori


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